Beam Gen 2 - sudden full volume hammering sound

  • 28 December 2021
  • 87 replies
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L
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Hi everyone,

Last week I got a Beam Gen 2 + Sub Gen 3 to replace my Beam Gen 1. So far everything's been running smoothly. Then today when I was listening to music with said setup while working a sudden hammering sound interrupted the music. The noise must have been at full volume despite the volume limit which I set to 40%. I jumped up from the couch and instantly pulled the plug. Music kept playing in the adjacent dining room on a pair of One/One SL for a bit before it stopped.

I tried to find the problem online and only found this video. This is exactly what I experienced with my Beam as well. However, this video does not give a good idea of how loud this really was.

Since I couldn't find a solution online, I called the support hotline. The lady on the phone told me, that such a problem has not come up yet. She asked me to replug the Beam and let some music play. After just a few minutes the noise interrupted the music again. So at least the support lady had some impression of it and I managed to send a diagnostic while the noise was on. After a few seconds the noise stopped. She then instructed me to reset the Beam/Sub setup and couldn't really help me otherwise.

Anyone here experienced this problem and possibly has a solution or knows what's the reason for this issue?

@Staff please help me out. This is really creeping me out as I feel this could come up again anytime... No fun watching movies or listening to music this way. My neighbours must hate me now.

Thank you.

87 replies

A

Repleacement-Beam has just arrived, just unpacking and setting it up….will keep You up to date here in this Thread…Finger crossed too…

C

It’s not looking good guys… Got Our Beam (Gen 2) Friday 28th April (6 days ago) and have had the issue 4 times already! 
As mentioned the only way to stop the noise is unplugging the power cord whilst being deafened. 
 

Logged diagnostics instantly after each time and kept each reference number. 
 

Called support and am going through the replacement process, not ideal and pretty poor from only owning less than a week! 
 

Will give the replacement 1 try but if it happens again then it will be changed for BOSE etc, cannot imagine it happening at 2am etc or whilst away for a weekend! 


Fitted to a Samsung TV via the recommended HDMI eARC.

Fingers crossed. 

A

Long Story Short: Unpacked a new SONOS-Home-Cinema-Package (Beam2, SubMini, 2x ERA100). Tested the Beam in connection with SubMini by just playing Music (Apple Music ==> SONOS S2 App ==> Beam+SubMini). After a few Minutes of Enjoyment the described Terror brokes out. After pulling the Power-Plug, the damn Thing rebooted normally, as never a thing was happen...Changes NEtwork-Connection of the BEam from WLAN to Cable-Ethernet (the SubMini still uses WLAN) and give it another try….after few Minutes it happend again. Now i was somwhat “stealed” an managed to run a Diagnosis fromout the SONOS-App and called to Support.

RMA-Process is ongoin atm, the dangerous Beam Gen 2 is back in the Box awaiting for Sending Back and i’m just listening with the “Remains” of the above mentioned SONOS-Setup (2 x ERA100 + SubMini) as 2.1 Stereo… Hopefully the replacement-Beam will NEVER EVER doing this MAchine Gun-Cacophony again...

A

Oh my god. I cannot put into words the dissatisfaction I have with Sonos and the absolute SH*T experience this was. I still have PTSD from this incident. I received the Sonos beam sound bar as a gift from my mother, and I was very excited to set this up. I have a play 1 that I purchased years ago which I love and has been phenomenal. Within 15 f****ing minutes of setting the beam up and turning on my TV the most atrocious soul piercing jack hammer/ machine gun sound that you all have described on this thread came out of the speakers. I quickly tried to mute my TV but that did nothing to deter the sound, I had to unplug from power to make it stop. Since I had used this product for literally 15 minutes fresh out of the freaking box using it in the recommended ARC HDMI port on my Samsung TV and using it with all the SONOS provided cables I called support and demanded they give me a new system as this experience was unequivocally unacceptable. Support wanted me to run a diagnostic - which apparently came back completely normal and wanted me to plug the speaker back in and play music… somehow expecting the noise to just magically reappear again while I had them on the phone? Sure enough, after the exchange I told myself maybe it was a fluke and attempted to use the speaker again after my call and not even 20 minutes later the same deafening sound came on and now that speaker is back in the box. I had neighbors run over and ask if I was okay because of the sound that this thing projected. 

 

A $500 speaker should NEVER do what this speaker just did in my household. This seriously makes me never want to buy another SONOs product ever again. I’m scared to get my replacement. I am genuinely scared to use this product and to leave it plugged in. Who feels like this after buying a $500 freaking home theater system??? Only SONOs customers. 

 

Dear SONOS, if you're reading this: DO SOMETHING.

T
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I don’t have a Beam but have an Arc/Sub/Surround (Play 1s) setup and this exact same thing has happened to me. Suddenly seems like a helicopter is inside my house. I thought it was coming from the sub but maybe it’s the Arc. I’m usually so panic-ed to turn the entire system off before my elderly mother has a heart attack that I can’t isolate which device the sound is coming from. I have not had it happen while watching TV. Only when playing music through the home theater setup and then, usually only happens when playing CD quality sources (Deezer, Amazon, Radio Paradise). Driving me insane and very reluctant to play HD music sources through the Arc/Sub/Surrounds which is wrong wrong wrong for how much I paid for this stuff. No issues with the 9 other speakers (Play:1’s Play:3s and current gen Play 5:s with Sub mini. Anyone have this issue with an ARC? I just upgraded to the 15.2 firmware on 3/27/23 and am going to brace the inhabitants of my house for a very loud noise. 

S
Userlevel 2
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So this just happened to me yesterday while watching HBO. Bought my beam gen 2 in 2021 and never had an issue with it before. When it happened it was not as loud as some of you describe but it was the same sound. It also seemed as if the beam lost connection to my LG OLED because when I tried to turn down the volume (I thought the sound was related to what I was seeing) it was as if I was adjusting the tv’s speakers and not the beam. 

 

Quick question - do you guys have trueplay turned on when it happens? Something tells me that the issue is related to software and the difference in my scenario was that yesterday I updated the firmware and for the first time in quite a while used trueplay.

N

I purchased a Beam 2 and 2 One SL speakers today. Not but a few hours after I set it up I experienced this loud jackhammer sound. I was quietly watching TV at 10:30pm when it happened. I nearly had a heart attack! The remote would not turn the volume down so I jumped up and pulled all of the cables out of the back. It didn’t stop until I pulled the power cable.

This is my first experience with a Sonos product and will likely be my last. I can’t have something like this in my home. No way! I purchased this because I thought it was quality, but I’m very disappointed.

One thing I wanted to point out is that I was using a Samsung TV, as it seems like many of you were. Was anybody NOT using a Samsung? Could there be some incompatibility between the two?

 

Sonos Support doesn’t rank this random loud deafening jack hammer noise as a priority issue and probably does not escalate it to the attention of management. Since Support doesn’t generate revenue this will not get the attention it deserves.

Patrick Spence, Sonos CEO quoted “we had a record quarter of sales …”.  As long as their products continue to sell the Audio Engineering department will focus on development and not resolve problems. To be heard send an email to the CEO and Maxime Bouvat-Merlin, Senior VP-Hardware & Operations let him know your dissatisfaction. I sent and received a reply. Check my past post under nuevo123.

BTW I returned my Beam Gen 2.

Email CEO: ceo@sonos.com

Email Sr. VP: Maxime.Bouvat-Merlin@sonos.com

P

I purchased a Beam 2 and 2 One SL speakers today. Not but a few hours after I set it up I experienced this loud jackhammer sound. I was quietly watching TV at 10:30pm when it happened. I nearly had a heart attack! The remote would not turn the volume down so I jumped up and pulled all of the cables out of the back. It didn’t stop until I pulled the power cable.

This is my first experience with a Sonos product and will likely be my last. I can’t have something like this in my home. No way! I purchased this because I thought it was quality, but I’m very disappointed.

One thing I wanted to point out is that I was using a Samsung TV, as it seems like many of you were. Was anybody NOT using a Samsung? Could there be some incompatibility between the two?

 

I have a Samsung TV and it happened while watching TV.

Z

I purchased a Beam 2 and 2 One SL speakers today. Not but a few hours after I set it up I experienced this loud jackhammer sound. I was quietly watching TV at 10:30pm when it happened. I nearly had a heart attack! The remote would not turn the volume down so I jumped up and pulled all of the cables out of the back. It didn’t stop until I pulled the power cable.

This is my first experience with a Sonos product and will likely be my last. I can’t have something like this in my home. No way! I purchased this because I thought it was quality, but I’m very disappointed.

One thing I wanted to point out is that I was using a Samsung TV, as it seems like many of you were. Was anybody NOT using a Samsung? Could there be some incompatibility between the two?

i have a sony tv, the annoying part is that its a well know thing for over a year and nothing is being done about it, except replacing the speaker for “free”, but at that point the damage is done and your very bother and annoyed, like i mention on my post, it happened to us at 3 am, and we were up all morning after that, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen

B

I purchased a Beam 2 and 2 One SL speakers today. Not but a few hours after I set it up I experienced this loud jackhammer sound. I was quietly watching TV at 10:30pm when it happened. I nearly had a heart attack! The remote would not turn the volume down so I jumped up and pulled all of the cables out of the back. It didn’t stop until I pulled the power cable.

This is my first experience with a Sonos product and will likely be my last. I can’t have something like this in my home. No way! I purchased this because I thought it was quality, but I’m very disappointed.

One thing I wanted to point out is that I was using a Samsung TV, as it seems like many of you were. Was anybody NOT using a Samsung? Could there be some incompatibility between the two?

P

It’s only happened to me once at 4 AM in the morning after I passed out watching TV. I bolted from my couch and tried to lower the volume with the remote. I finally just pulled the plug on it and left it unplugged for about 8 hours. It has not happened again and have not called customer support just yet. Wondering if this is a ticking time bomb. I went away for the weekend worrying that the machine gun blast would scare my cat to death or have my neighbors call the cops with no one to pull the plug as quick as I did. Fingers crossed this was a one time thing.

Z

I agree with your statement, great sounding speakers, but would have loved a warning about this so that it wouldn't have woken us up in a huge scare at 3 in the morning 

RangerDog
Userlevel 2
Badge +4

I had this happen multiple times. At first I couldn’t figure it out and since I bought a new TV at the same time wasn’t sure which product to blame. (It never happened to me at any time other than watching TV. Not during music or when quiet. Also, I did not find this thread until after the issue was resolved.) I finally called SONOS tech support. (FYI: I’ve called them several times over the years and have always been very happy with the service.)

After asking a few questions tech support told me they would replace the speaker and send me a pre-paid label to send back the old one in the box from the new one. I called on a Monday morning and the replacement speaker arrived Tuesday afternoon, e.g. the next day! The simple swap required me to go through the setup process again. It has been a few weeks and the replacement speaker is performing exactly as it should.

I currently own 15 SONOS speakers and have given about that many again as gifts. This is the first time one required replacement and the service was outstanding.

Sure, I would have preferred my speaker never exhibited that loud hammering noise. And I wish SONOS had sent out some sort of alert indicating it could happen and explaining they would fix it. But overall, the my experience with customer service/tech support is far ahead of the vast majority of companies producing tech products. End result: I still love my SONOS system.

Z

Wow I didn’t know a speaker would be capable of causing so much chaos. Mine just erupted with what can only be described as deafening machine gun firing sounds. Already boxed it up and sending it back. I can’t have a product in the house that has the capability of doing that. It terrified my dogs. My blind dog was so scared she ran into a wall. I damn near torn my ACL trying to get to the thing to unplug it. This thing is going to spark a class action lawsuit. A speaker that can actually cause physical harm to living things in your house! Quite the accomplishment.

Its just a real pity you couldn’t have remained calm and captured the issue on video and taken a system diagnostic report, as that may have helped everyone else to get to the root cause of the issue.

It’s certainly an issue I’ve seen reported online involving several other ‘brands’ of Soundbar/Speaker too, so it makes me wonder if it’s a codec, or a particular component issue.

Oh well let’s hope that if it ever happens to anyone else, that they are able to ’keep calm and carry on’ and gather the information that’s really needed to help resolve the issue

As someone that this just happened to I can tell you, you can't be calm about it, it just woke us up, we thought we were being attacked,y wife had a panic attack, it was the fist night we e were able to sleep since the baby, so no, being calm during this wouldn't be easy, I also see this being a lawsuit 

R

Isn't it time for a Twitter *** storm? They had over a year to fix this heart attack time bomb and the best they come up with is "working on a fix but we don't have a timeline yet”??

From a business perspective I totally understand them ignoring it, for a month or two but not a year. This is one of the best reviewed products in its class if not the best. But with an issue that bad it's really undeserved. 
A recall like this is scary expensive but the longer they wait, the more expensive it's gonna get.

 

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

R

Glad I found this thread. 

I’ve had the exact same experience with my Beam (gen 2). It has happened seven times in three months of usage.

Is the consensus that this is a hardware issue, only fixed with a replacement?

 

The replacement Beam 2 Sonos sent me still has this problem, but it’s no longer happening at volumes that would give you a heart attack. 
 

In fact mine just did it again today after 3 months of not doing it, doing something entirely different than either of the previous situations. Sonos still hasn’t fixed this and it sucks. 

D

Glad I found this thread. 

I’ve had the exact same experience with my Beam (gen 2). It has happened seven times in three months of usage.

Is the consensus that this is a hardware issue, only fixed with a replacement?

 

M

Yes, also happens when playing music. With airplay and with the Sonos app.

I have two Sonos beams gen 2, one with 2 ikea sym as surround 

and one setup with the beam gen 2, sub mini and 2 one’s. Just occurred / experienced the hammering sound with this last set-up

M

I had the issue occur multiple times this weekend already. I’ve submitted diagnostics twice in the past 24 hours (although the issue occurred far more than just the twice) - but have not reached out to support yet as the timing was not great for sitting on the phone.

I have a “case #” that I was given the last time I actually reported it to support - It would be great if there was a mechanism so that I could attach the # that the app reports when I submit diagnostics to my case # so that support could look at the diagnostics without needing to be prompted by a call.

 

 

 

yes, also pops up with streaming music with airplay or just using the Sonos app

 

N

Update from email I sent to Sonos CEO:

I received a reply from Jake (not the Jake from State Farm lol) but from Sonos Cusomer Experience. Here’s his response … 

Patrick forwarded your note along to me as I am a supervisor here at Sonos. Your case has been assigned to our team here at Sonos Customer Experience.

Thanks for bringing it up. We would like to apologize for the inconvenience. As of now, we are actively investigating this matter and working on a fix but we don't have a timeline yet. I will make sure to let the Engineering Team know about the feedback

And of course another case id.

If Engineering is only now investigating this what with all the complaints over a year ago they must have a low priority for this problem. I’m not taking a chance on another Beam 2 and will move on from Sonos. An interesting option is the Bose 600  introduced in October which has upward firing speakers. 

G

Can add to this. I got a Beam (Gen 2) from Costco for Black Friday. Setup went smooth and the first use was great. However, when I was watching Spirited in Dolby Atmos on the Apple TV app native to the Samsung TV, 7 minutes in, it made a loud, horrible machine gun sound. So, safe to say, I unplugged it and tried again next weekend by streaming National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on HBO Max (Dolby Multichannel 5.1), and that time, it happened 3 times, the first one being a whimper, and the next 2 were the same as the first instance. The following week, I finally called Sonos to see if I could get to the bottom of this. Nothing much happened on that call, except for me getting a case number and them suggesting to update it. That update made it go away for that session, but then I powered it down. That brings us to yesterday, when I used my Sonos Beam to watch the 4K Blu-ray of The Grinch (2018) on my Samsung 4K Blu-ray player. It only lasted 7 minutes before emitting that horrific sound. After that, I called Sonos to let them know it had occurred again. Not even 5 minutes after telling them my case number and running some diagnostics (didn’t have to give a number apparently), they went straight to replacement. And it was a really abrupt tone shift at that. Anyway, that brings me to today, where I went back to an another Costco to get a replacement Beam. I didn’t take up Sonos’s offer because I wanted to get a new one and use Costco’s generous return policy. So, I am hoping to god it doesn’t happen again on this one, because I really want to get the IKEA surrounds so I can have a good audio setup. 

N

I’m following this board on all the reported issues with the Beam 2 unexpected LOUD HAMMERING noise. Purchased a Beam 2 from Costco and within a day the same booming explosive hammer/machine gun noise occurred. This happened randomly when watching TV or streaming music. Followed up with Sonos Support and after several calls they offered to send me a replacement. However the replacement is a refurb or open box unit.

The problem with this is I just purchased a new unit that is a week old and I am not swapping it for a refurb. Since Sonos is aware of this hardware issue for over a year and not addressing it I have absolutely no confidence in their product. I was so looking forward to the Beam as my soundbar. This is going back to Costco. (One less Sonos customer).

S

Sonos replaced my Beam2 now and the new one has not had the issue so far.

Hi! I replaced my Beam2 today, what about your Beam2? Still having the issue?

I just experienced this on my Beam Gen 2 that I bought for Black Friday (3 weeks ago).  My wife was watching TV when the Sound bar malfunctioned and sounded like a Jack Hammer going off in our home.  We ran out of the house in our socks in the middle of a snowstorm because we thought something was going to explode.  This was a terrible experience!

 

The fact that this has been happening for 11 months and there is no fix is unacceptable. 

 

Does Sonos have plans to acknowledge and address this issue?

TBH, I just got my SONS Beam Gen2 Delivery, after a rally with the carrier uh!, Anyway I’m starting to be worried about this issue, and thinking to return back everything to SONOS, before the returning policy ending. I prayer not happen to me.Lastly, any advice before this issue happen? Like be worry not to ...etc 

T

I just experienced this on my Beam Gen 2 that I bought for Black Friday (3 weeks ago).  My wife was watching TV when the Sound bar malfunctioned and sounded like a Jack Hammer going off in our home.  We ran out of the house in our socks in the middle of a snowstorm because we thought something was going to explode.  This was a terrible experience!

 

The fact that this has been happening for 11 months and there is no fix is unacceptable. 

 

Does Sonos have plans to acknowledge and address this issue?

V

I had the issue occur again .. multiple times late last night and again this morning. I collected diags and called support .. they look at the diags, but then ask me to play TV audio with expectation that the issue will occur while they are on the phone. This is extremely unlikely, as I’ve told them repeatedly that the issue can occur several times in rapid succession, but then not occur for another few hours or days.

 

I captured a video of it happening this morning:

https://ufile.io/429v3h2a

 

You can see the show on the TV with the sound doing its messed up machine-gun/stuttering thing. Then I hit pause, but the messed up sound keeps going - until it stops as the Beam Gen 2 resets itself. I offered to send this video to technical support to help show what the issue is, but they did not seem all that interested.

 

Other observations (trying to capture any additional data):

  • It may just be me, but it actually kind of seems that the pitch of the noise is related to whatever the actual sound was when the trigger happens.
    • For example, If you are watching an show where there is somebody singing in a higher pitch and the trigger happens, then the stutter seems to be a higher pitch.
    • On the other hand, if all that is happening is low dramatic music then the pitch seems to be lower. 

Tech support also keeps asking me if I encounter this when streaming Music (ie: not watching TV or movie). I don’t really listen to Music on my home theater setup, so I can’t comment on that. Not sure if anybody else out there who has seen this issue can comment?

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